“Well, I have to say it’s more than I thought you’d be wearin’,” Beau snorts. “Lucky me.”
I glance down at my bare torso and the dick that still wants to get hard, even in the face of disappointment. “You know I’m not an early riser.”
“Yeah, sure,” Beau chuckles, following my gaze before he holds up a familiar paper bag. “It’s been a while. Thought we could have my favorite breakfast burritos, unless you’re expectin’ someone else?”
“I’m not.”
I step back to let him into a house that used to be his, and he stops before making himself at home becauseused to bematters to him. After I’ve closed the front door, I swipe the food from his hand and march toward the kitchen with a certainty I don’t feel, and Beau is right behind me, understanding everything when hetakes the bag back.
“Was he here last night?”
Anyone else might’ve accepted a lie from me just to be polite, but I don’t even try it with him. I don’t answer him either, pulling two mugs for the coffee that brewed about an hour ago. Then I realize I don’t have enough for him if I want my usual three cups.
“It’s fine,” Beau says, beating me to whatever excuse I could’ve offered. “I had some closer to sunrise.”
I nod and pour mine, and he sits at our small kitchen table to tear into breakfast. He’s wearing sweatpants and a flannel over a t-shirt he’s had forever, and I consider leaving him long enough to find pants of my own, but he’s seen everything already and couldn’t care less. I drop into a chair across from him and pull a burrito toward me.
“You know, I brought these to Adrian the mornin’ after he dropped his ID at Trailhead.”
“You mean the morning after you fucked him?” I ask.
Beau smiles. “Afterhefuckedme, but yeah.”
“You still owe me for sending you on that errand, don’t you?”
“Maybe that’s why I’m here.”
He’s probably right, and we’re about to end up in the same place no matter what I say next. We look at each other, years of love and dishonesty between us, and then I take a bite and watch him do the same. Beau’s good at being patient and sitting still, while I’ve always been awful at both. I do it now because the breakfast burrito is fucking delicious, and my ex-husband almost certainly has the upper hand in whatever game he wants to play.He distracts me with some small talk about Adrian’s gallery, and I mention a pool party without saying a word about who would host it. The coffee goes down easy, and being close to Beau is rarely anything but, so once my food is gone, I crumple the foil wrapper into a ball and confess.
“He left before I woke up. When I heard the knock at the door, I thought maybe—” I shake my head and wave off his concern. “It’s not a big deal. We usually bail on each other right after we’re done, so I haven’t fallen asleep with anyone since you, and—I don’t know. I think my body was thrown off.”
“Ah, yeah, yourbodywas thrown off for sure.”
I toss the foil at him. “It’s not like that. We’ve been getting to know each other better, and it’s been fun to fuck around with him, too.”
“I’ll admit that the bulge you brought to the door supports your point, but the look in your eyes makes me think it got more complicated than that. It’s not what I expected to see, actually.”
“My bulge?”
“I haven’t been surprised by that since the first time I got my hand on it,” Beau grins. “But the struggle of someone who might’ve fallen harder and faster than they’d planned? Yeah, no, I thought I was comin’ over to see how you were doing with the whole daddy dearest situation and give you shit about landin’ Trailhead’s most wanted. Definitely didn’t expect to break your heart by not being him.”
“How much do you know about Jake and his wife?”
Beau shrugs. “The basics, I guess. They married young, had akid, she got sick and died, he’s been hangin’ out at Trailhead ever since.”
“Yeah, so, he’s already loved and lost. He’s not gonna do it again.”
Beau laughs at me. Fully fuckinglaughs. “You can’t possibly be lookin’ at me and believe that for a second.”
I push away from the table and pour myself another cup, my back turned to him while I look out the window at the small yard and a quiet morning—or daytime, I suppose. He’s obviously right that people can fall in love again. He and Adrian are proof of that, and I’m not interested in starting a fight they’ve already won. But it doesn’t change my more specific point about Jake.
Everyone knows I’ve broken vows before, and I have no intention of doing it again.
“I promised him I understood.”
The scrape of Beau’s chair against the floor is louder than I expect it to be, probably because nothing else makes a sound. He’s standing behind me a second later—crowds me there, really—but now that we’re divorced, I’ll melt into the safety of his embrace long before I’ll run from the threat, and I don’t mind him throwing his size around just because he can.
“Understood what?” he asks, his question practically pressed to the top of my head.